Trump's Final Executive Order On Social Media Deliberately Removed Reference To Importance Of Newspapers To Democracy

from the because-of-course dept

We wrote a detailed breakdown of the President's silly, nonsensical, legally wrong Executive Order regarding social media yesterday. A few hours later the official version came out, and it was somewhat different than the draft (though, in no ways better). If you want to see the differences between the draft and the final version, here's a handy dandy redline version put together by Professor Eric Goldman.

The new version inserted a bunch more nutty ramblings that have no legal meaning, but should the executive order ever need to be challenged in court, more or less made it clear that this was done vindictively. It honestly reads like Trump read the draft and whined that there wasn't enough about how unfair everyone is to him and what a meanie Rep. Adam Schiff has been in investigating the President. Separately, the very fact that the draft changed so drastically from the night before to the moment of release shows that it was drafted hastily, which provides even more evidence that it was done directly in retaliation for Twitter fact checking his false claims.

The biggest change in the final version is that beyond setting up a "working group," the final version instructs the Attorney General to "develop model legislation for consideration in States where existing statutes do not protect Americans from such unfair and deceptive practices." Theoretically, this might become a nuisance, but (1) Barr already put together such a working group last year, and (2) had already been working on various legislative proposals to undermine Section 230, including the EARN IT Act that we've discussed at great length.

One other notable change is in the instructions given to the FCC, which (despite having literally no legal authority over websites) is to come up with an interpretation of Section 230 (also, the FCC has no reason or basis to interpret Section 230, as that's a job for the courts). The difference from the draft is that it instructs this analysis to look at "the interaction" between the two clauses of the Good Samaritan clause:

... requesting that the FCC expeditiously propose regulations to clarify:

(i) the interaction between subparagraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of section 230, in particular to clarify and determine the circumstances under which a provider of an interactive computer service that restricts access to content in a manner not specifically protected by subparagraph (c)(2)(A) may also not be able to claim protection under subparagraph (c)(1), which merely states that a provider shall not be treated as a publisher or speaker for making third-party content available and does not address the provider’s responsibility for its own editorial decisions;

If you don't recall, we've discussed at great lengths the two parts of 230. (c)(1) is the sites are not liable for content posted by users part and (c)(2) is sites are not liable for moderation choices. These are two separate things. There is no "interaction" between them. There's never been any interaction between them. No court has said there's any interaction between them. As far as I know, no party in a case has competently argued that there's an interaction between them.

Yet, to try to make this EO have teeth, the Trump administration seems to want to invent an interaction between the two. Specifically, (c)(2)(A) says that:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of.... any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

The Executive Order is hinting that "good faith" and the "objectionable" content part should somehow restrict the part that makes a website liable for what it's users do. There is no credible lawyer who thinks this makes any sense. It's just a weird move by someone looking for any scrap of a way to increase the liability of websites.

But to me, the craziest part of the "changes" between the draft and the final version is that someone apparently flipped out that during the patriotic nonsense part, the original draft mentioned that open and free debate in businesses and newspapers is "essential to sustaining our democracy." And the final version crossed out both businesses and newspapers, and replaced them with "town halls."

It's almost as if someone saw that and said "shit, we can't admit that open debate in newspapers is good for democracy when we keep attacking them and calling them fake news."

Once again, this whole thing is nonsense, and is designed to distract from the President's own failings.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, cda 230, doj, donald trump, executive order, fcc, free speech, ftc, section 230, social media

The Two Things To Understand About Trump's Executive Order On Social Media: (1) It's A Distraction (2) It's Legally Meaningless

from the the-season-of-dumb dept

We've officially reached pure silly season when it comes to internet regulations. For the past two years now, every so often, reports have come out that the White House was exploring issuing an executive order trying to attack Section 230 and punish companies for the administration's belief in the myth that content moderation practices at large social media firms are "biased" against conservatives.

However, it apparently took Twitter literally doing nothing more than linking to people arguing that Trump's tweets were misleading, to cause our President to throw a total shit fit and finally break out the executive order. This one is somewhat different than drafts that have been floated in the past, though it has the same origins (and, according to a few people I spoke to, this new executive order was "hastily drafted" to appease an angry President who can't stand the idea that someone might correct his nonsense). You can read the draft that get sent around to everyone last night. The final version is expected to be at least somewhat close to this.

To be clear: the executive order is nonsense. You can't overrule the law by executive order, nor can you ignore the Constitution. This executive order attempts to do both. It's also blatantly anti-free speech, anti-private property, pro-big government -- which is only mildly amusing, given that Trump and his sycophantic followers like to insist they're the opposite of all of those things. But also, because the executive order only has limited power, there's a lot of huffing and puffing in there for very little actual things that the administration can do. It's very much written in a way to make Trump's fans think he's done something to attack social media companies, but the deeper you dig, the more nothingness you find.

Let's dig into this clusterfuck of nonsense. It starts out with what might sounds like a sensible argument, if you don't understand the ins-and-outs of Section 230, by saying that because Section 230's "good samaritan" clause requires good faith, that "pretextual actions restricting online content or actions inconsistent with an online platform's terms of service" are somehow not covered by 230:

Section 230(c) was designed to address court decisions from the early days of the Internet holding that an online platform that engaged in any editing or restriction of content posted by others thereby became itself a “publisher” of the content and could be liable for torts like defamation. As the title of section 230(c) makes clear, the provision is intended to provide liability “protection” to a provider of an interactive computer service (such as an online platform like Twitter) that engages in “‘Good Samaritan’ blocking” of content when the provider deems the content (in the terms of subsection 230(c)(2)(A)) obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable. Subsection 230(c)(1) broadly states that no provider of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of content provided by another person. But subsection 230(c)(2) qualifies that principle when the provider edits the content provided by others. Subparagraph (c)(2) specifically addresses protections from “civil liability” and clarifies that a provider is protected from liability when it acts in “good faith” to restrict access to content that it considers to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.” The provision does not extend to deceptive or pretextual actions restricting online content or actions inconsistent with an online platform’s terms of service. When an interactive computer service provider removes or restricts access to content and its actions do not meet the criteria of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), it is engaged in editorial conduct. By making itself an editor of content outside the protections of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), such a provider forfeits any protection from being deemed a “publisher or speaker” under subsection 230(c)(1), which properly applies only to a provider that merely provides a platform for content supplied by others. It is the policy of the United States that all departments and agencies should apply section 230(c) according to the interpretation set out in this section.

This, like so much misinformation, has a tiny nugget of truth, buried in a mound of pure bullshit. The nugget of truth: content created by a platform has never been covered by Section 230. That means that the text of the line notifying people that there was more information about mail-in ballots, was a Twitter creation and of course it's liable for that content alone. That's always been the case though. This executive order does nothing to change that.

But nearly everything else here is ridiculous nonsense. Courts have ruled over and over and over again that "otherwise objectionable" covers a lot of ground and the President doesn't get to just change that. Besides, it's beyond evident that Twitter had a good faith belief that its users were better served by providing additional context (additional speech!) to Trump's conspiracy theory. That's a basic editorial function well protected by the 1st Amendment.

Also, importantly, the order that "all departments and agencies should apply" this nonsense interpretation of 230 is... meaningless. Federal agencies don't interpret or enforce Section 230. The courts do that. So what will this actually do or change? Literally nothing.

From there, the President tries to get agencies to "do something," that they cannot do and which would be meaningless even if they wanted to do something anyway.

To further advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this section, within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary), through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), shall file a petition for rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting that the FCC expeditiously propose regulations to clarify:

(i) the conditions under which an action restricting access to or availability of material is not “taken in good faith” within the meaning of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) of section 230, particularly the conditions under which such actions will be considered to be:

(1) deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider’s terms of service; or
(2) the result of inadequate notice, the product of unreasoned explanation, or having been undertaking without a meaningful opportunity to be heard; and

(ii) Any other proposed regulations that the NTIA concludes may be appropriate to advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this section.

So much nonsense to unpack here. First of all, the FCC has no authority to issue such regulations. None, zip, zilch. Part of the ruling in Reno v. ACLU that tossed out all the other parts of the CDA as unconstitutional made it clear that the FCC has no authority to regulate websites. And it's even more ridiculous when you realize that this is being handed to the very same FCC that has sworn up and down, left, right, center, backwards, and forwards, Monday through Sunday and back again, that it has no authority to regulate "neutrality" and doesn't want to have any authority to regulate "neutrality," and even thinking that the FCC might want to enforce neutrality over the parts of the telecom system that it does have authority over is crazy talk and nonsense. So, you have an FCC saying it can't enforce neutrality for infrastructure players (again, over which the courts have made clear it has authority), being told that it needs to enforce neutrality for edge providers (which no sensible person believes it has authority).

Second, courts have long determined that the only reasonable interpretation of "taken in good faith" is to mean that the platforms have a very wide berth in choosing what to moderate. A court cannot second guess that without running into significant 1st Amendment issues regarding compelled speech and anyone's ability to make their own editorial judgments. Third, "deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider's terms of service" is again outside the FCC's authority. It might be covered by the FTC, but in a very, very limited way. Making editorial decisions that an immature crybaby with too much power doesn't like is not deceptive nor inconsistent with a website's terms of service.

Third, note the specifics of the order. The NTIA, which the President can command, is told to petition the FCC (which the President cannot command). The FCC need not do anything with that petition. Fluff and nonsense designed to make people think something was done.

Perhaps recognizing how silly the FCC part is, the EO also ropes in the FTC. But this won't get very far either:

The FTC shall consider taking action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. 45. Such unfair or deceptive acts or practice shall include practices by entities regulated by section 230 that restrict speech in ways that do not align with those entities’ public representations about those practices.

First off, the FTC already has the power to prohibit unfair and deceptive acts. So telling the FTC that it should do what it already does is... once again... meaningless. As for telling the FTC to go after platforms for restricting speech... well, that's just blatantly unconstitutional, and the FTC knows it would lose any such case. It would lose badly and embarrassingly. I'd be very surprised if the FTC chose to go through that just for the hell of it.

The entire framing of this section is like a fever dream from all of the failed lawsuits trying to challenge Section 230 by misreading three very important Supreme Court decisions, two of which don't say what many whining people think they say, and one of which they ignore. You'll see the two they misread here:

(a) It is the policy of the United States that large social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, as the functional equivalent of a traditional public forum, should not infringe on protected speech. The Supreme Court has described that social media sites, as the modern public square, “can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.” Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1737 (2017). Communication through these channels has become important for meaningful participation in American democracy, including to petition elected leaders. These sites are providing a public forum to the public for others to engage in free expression and debate. Cf. PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 85-89 (1980).

Packingham and Pruneyard are regularly cited by people who don't understand either, to argue that Twitter is a public forum. Courts have shot this down repeatedly. As they should, because neither case says what people claim they say. Packingham was a very important case, in which the Supreme Court said, quite clearly, that governments cannot pass a law that kicks people off the internet. That's it. Note that it applies to governments. It does not apply to private companies.

Pruneyard is a case about whether or not a particular shopping mall had become a public square, limiting the ability of the owners to kick people out. Anyone citing that case to argue that its ruling applies to social media has to ignore (1) the very specific fact pattern in Pruneyard, and (2) multiple cases since Pruneyard that have narrowed that decision down to the point that it appears to apply to just the shopping center in question. And this is made clear in the Manhattan Neighborhood Network case from just last summer, in which the 5 "conservative" justices made it clear that Pruneyard was a special case, and social media would not even come remotely close to meeting the "public forum" standard. For what it's worth, the 4 "liberal" judges dissented on the overall decision, but even their dissent makes it clear that they agreed with the fact that private companies do not turn into public forum bound by the 1st Amendment just by hosting conversations.

This is the case that the executive order totally ignores, despite being written by the most recent Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, and which lays out in painstaking detail, that in order to meet the Pruneyard standard, a website would need to perform a function that had "traditionally and exclusively been performed by government." That's not Twitter. Indeed, Kavanaugh's opinion in the MNN case was a robust support for private property rights, and makes it clear why Trump's executive order is the exact opposite of that:

In short, merely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function and does not alone transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints.

If the rule were otherwise, all private property owners and private lessees who open their property for speech would be subject to First Amendment constraints and would lose the ability to exercise what they deem to be appropriate editorial discretion within that open forum. Private property owners and private lessees would face the unappetizing choice of allowing all comers or closing the platform altogether. “The Constitution by no means requires such an attenuated doctrine of dedication of private property to public use.” ... Benjamin Franklin did not have to operate his newspaper as “a stagecoach, with seats for everyone.” ... That principle still holds true. As the Court said in Hudgens, to hold that private property owners providing a forum for speech are constrained by the First Amendment would be “to create a court-made law wholly disregarding the constitutional basis on which private ownership of property rests in this country.” ... The Constitution does not disable private property owners and private lessees from exercising editorial discretion over speech and speakers on their property

In other words, the executive order's reliance on the the completely unrelated Packingham, and completely irrelevant Pruneyard cases, is just more nonsense.

Then the executive order tasks the Attorney General with hassling companies the President doesn't like:

(a) The Attorney General shall establish a working group regarding the potential enforcement of State statutes that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair and deceptive acts and practices. The working group shall invite State Attorneys General for discussion and consultation, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.

Of course, this is already happening with antitrust, and I doubt it will be any different here. Just more bad faith harassment over supposed political viewpoints.

The only thing in the executive order that is something that can be handled by an executive order is a petty and silly decision to maybe, kinda have the federal government stop buying ads on platforms the President dislikes. Except it doesn't even say that. The title says that it's a "prohibition on spending federal taxpayer dollars on advertising with online platforms that violate free speech principles" but that's only the title. The actual details beneath that heading do not say that anyone has to stop buying ads. It just asks federal agencies to waste their time to account for how much they're spending on advertising on these platforms and "assess." That might lead to reduced advertising in practice, but it is not ordered here.

The head of each executive department and agency (agency) shall review its agency’s Federal spending on advertising and marketing paid to online platforms. Such review shall include the amount of money spent, the online platforms supported, the viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each online platform, an assessment of whether the online platform is appropriate for such agency’s speech, and the statutory authorities available to restrict advertising dollars to online platforms not appropriate for such agency’s speech.

This, of course, seems kind of pointless and petty. It's unlikely to do very much, but if it does lead to less advertising, it just harms the ability of the federal government to get out the messaging it wants to get out, so if the President wants to shoot himself in the foot that way, well, that's his call. Of course, you can pretty much bet that as this is happening, the President's re-election campaign is spending gobs and gobs of money on these very same platforms.

Anyway -- this is all a distraction. The polls currently don't look great for Trump and over 100,000 people are dead in large part due to Trump's own mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. He doesn't want people talking about this, so he does something performative like this instead. It does get people talking about it, and he knows full well that his ignorant base of sycophantic followers will eat this up in the false belief that it actually means something and will somehow "take away" Section 230. It doesn't. It can't. It's nonsense.

Still, it's already working. I've already seen major media claiming that this is Trump "limiting" Section 230 or paring it back, and his fans are jumping up and down, even though the end result of this is not at all what they think it is. Don't be one of those foolish people.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bias, cda 230, donald trump, executive order, free speech, private property, section 230
Companies: twitter

The Pai FCC Is Oddly Quiet About Trump's Plan To Have The Agency Police Speech

from the selective-silence dept

So last week, you probably saw the leaked plan by the Trump administration to try and "fix" the nonexistent censorship of Conservatives on social media. According to the leak, a large part of the plan would involve having the FCC, which has no real authority in this area, police speech on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Most legal experts I've spoken to say the plan is illegal and utterly nonsensical, and the FCC has no authority to do this under Section 230 or anywhere else. The order would also undermine most of the logic the Pai FCC used in its effort to repeal net neutrality.

Oddly though, an FCC that has been very vocal on this subject when convenient has been oddly mute since the story broke, with none of the agency's three Republican Commissioners (Ajit Pai, Brendan Carr, or Mike O'Rielly) making so much as a peep about the terribleness of the latest Trump "plan."

This kind of silence is uncharacteristic. O'Rielly, for example, was positively apoplectic recently when he proclaimed (falsely) that community broadband posed a dire threat to free speech. Carr has similarly expressed great disdain previously at the idea of government regulating speech on social media platforms, and hyperventilates over telecom sector free speech rights any time someone even faintly suggests giants like Comcast should be held accountable for decades of abysmal service:

Then there's Pai, who attacked net neutrality extensively by insisting it was the equivalent of the Fairness Doctrine, the exact type of solution Trump is now proposing for social media. Pai has routinely tried to play both sides of this debate, insisting he's a stalwart defender of free speech, yet demonizing platforms like Twitter for nonexistent censorship when it makes for a good sound byte. He's also repeatedly stated we can't possibly hold bumbling monopolies like AT&T and Comcast accountable on the state or federal level because it would violate their First Amendment rights (a belief those companies share).

All of this endless hand wringing over free speech, and yet when the President of the United States says he wants to use the FCC to police speech on social media (again with near zero authority to do so), all three of these free speech patriots are suddenly quiet.

And while you could argue that they didn't comment because the plan hasn't been made official yet, that didn't stop them from loudly deriding a similarly undercooked, leaked plan by the Trump administration to nationalize the nation's 5G networks. That plan was largely just the lobbyist brain fart of a Peter Thiel-backed company named Rivada Networks (supported by folks like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich), yet Carr, O'Rielly, and Pai all had plenty to say about the unworkability of that plan (largely because such a plan is AT&T and Verizon's worst nightmare).

The trio's fellow commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel offered up what was probably the most concise reaction to having the FCC police Facebook and Twitter:

As many have surmised this could all amount to a giant hill of bupkis. The administration may have just been floating a trial balloon that has now, clearly, popped. After all, in the Trump era you can never tell what's serious policy and what's the passing brain fart of whoever has the President's ear at one particular moment.

Still, you'd think a trio of FCC Commissioners who proclaim to be champions of free speech would have had something to say about the plan given the scale of its stupidity. Yet they've refused to issue any comment whatsoever after more than a week. It's almost as if they're not actually being ideologically consistent, and are remaining mute simply out of blind partisan allegiance and support of Trump's clearly idiotic plan to blame social media for the fact that many people just can't stop being grifting assholes on the internet.

And while there's certainly plenty of very real problems with Facebook and Google (especially on the privacy front), it's been kind of overlooked in tech policy circles that a lot of the animosity in DC toward "big tech" right now originates with telecom giants eager to elbow in on Silicon Valley online ad revenues. It is, as they say, always about the money.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, administrative law, ajit pai, anti-conservative bias, bias, brendan carr, donald trump, executive order, fcc, free speech, michael o'rielly, policing speech, social media
Companies: facebook, google

White House Potentially Exploring Executive Order On 'Social Media Bias'

from the the-first-amendment-would-like-a-word dept

The White House may be preparing an executive order for the President, pushing for investigations of "bias" at social media companies. It is not definite, but someone has leaked us a draft two page executive order. We're not releasing the draft because, despite it coming directly from someone in the White House, others have insisted it's not an accurate document, even as the approach to some extent mirrors the announced plans of the DOJ to investigate bias. Another reason we're not releasing the document itself is that we're quite aware of reports saying that there are attempts to find "leakers" in the White House, and one common method of doing so is to put small indicators in documents. We cannot guarantee that this document is not such a document and thus will be reporting on the basic concept of what's in this draft, without revealing the full document.

But, to be clear, if this document is accurate, it would almost certainly lead to a huge First Amendment fight, which it seems likely the companies would win.

Obviously the issue of social media and supposed political bias has been a big topic in DC lately -- including with the President -- despite the near total lack of actual evidence to support these claims. Yes, there is evidence of people being kicked off these platforms... but there is no evidence that the reasons have anything to do with political bias (people of all political stripes have been removed from these platforms). And, yes, there is also evidence that employees at many internet companies may lean one way politically, but that too is overstated and says nothing about how the platforms actually work.

Recently, we noted that the DOJ and various state Attorneys General were talking about using antitrust law against social media companies over bias, and explained in fairly great detail why that would almost certainly run afoul of the First Amendment and a whole long list of Supreme Court cases detailing how the government cannot compel speech of this nature.

And that's where this executive order, as leaked, would almost certainly run into huge First Amendment issues. It tries to hide these behind antitrust claims, saying that it's about ensuring competition and preventing the exercise of market power that "harms consumers, including through the exercise of bias." The Executive Order itself doesn't hide the intent, as "bias in online platforms" is specifically in the title. Basically, the order would task the White House with "investigating" social media platforms for bias and then seek to use antitrust actions (or pass it off to the DOJ or FTC) to punish companies that show loosely defined "bias." The document takes as default that any kind of "bias" on major internet platforms should be taken as anti-competitive (which seems incredibly questionable) and then also requires that various agencies give the President a report on how to "address" social media bias.

I have trouble seeing how this could possibly be constitutional under the First Amendment, as it is, quite explicitly, the government trying to regulate speech, and clearly does not fall into any of the exceptions to the First Amendment. It's possible this executive order will never actually become anything -- perhaps someone in the White House will prevent it from moving forward (it's also clear that the draft I've seen is not complete, as there are still notes about what's being worked on). But the fact that this is even being considered is certainly notable.

I asked Ken White, well known around here as a former Assistant US Attorney and current First Amendment lawyer what he thought of the draft and he noted that the document seemed so weakly put together that he had a hard time believing it was something anyone was seriously considering, though, he noted "with this administration it's very difficult to tell." He also noted that it appeared to be "more posturing than substance" and designed to "preach to the choir" rather than anything serious. As for the substance, he noted that while it asserts that "bias" is a violation of antitrust law, that's not at all accurate:

That’s a distortion and exaggeration. Nothing in the document elaborates or supports it. To the extent antitrust is concerned with bias it’s not the "kick the Nazis off the platform" kind. It's more like a concern about, for instance, Google altering search results to prefer products and services it owns.

Indeed, the general point of antitrust is to deal with when a dominant player is abusing its position to favor its own offerings, not on how it handles general moderation duties. So, while I wouldn't put it past this administration to mock up this kind of executive order as an exercise in thinking through what it can "do" about the exaggerated and misleading claims of "political bias" in search results, I have a hard time believing the administration would bother pushing forward with this idea, and if it actually did get that far that it would have any luck in convincing anyone (who matters) that this was constitutional. That said, if the point is just, as Ken suggested, preaching to the choir, I also wouldn't put it past this administration to push out this executive order just to rile up Trump's most ardent supporters, who continue to scream to the heavens about political bias in search results, despite a near total lack of evidence to support such claims.

Filed Under: antitrust, bias, doj, donald trump, executive order, first amendment, free speech, social media bias
Companies: facebook, google, twitter